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 Re:

Quote:
An intereting read, thank you for sharing it.



Your welcome. I posted it on purpose without telling you the church council this came from: The Council of Trent. This council defined in no uncertain terms the nature of our justification. It exposed the errors of Luther and Calvin once and for all. It especially exposed their notion of Sola Fide. I don't think you or some other protestants here would agree with Luther's view of Sola Fide either. Luther was indeed a heretic that deserved to be excommunicated for his unbiblical doctrine.

Quote:
In regard to your question whether I agree or not with point 9, so far as I understand the language of this canon, I believe I agree with it.



Glad to hear it. So in the Lutheran understanding, you are not Sola Fide in theology. Praise God for that.

Quote:
But I also believe in the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace that condtions us so as to be able to respond to the Lord when the seed of the supernatural faith that comes through the proclaimed word of God, so as to bring about saving grace for when we do respond to the good news of Jesus Christ.



Remember that Wesley was an Anglican. So he was more Catholic in many more areas than other Protestants.

I wonder if these "reformers" stayed humble and waited for the Church to correct the errors of Tetzel if they would have left.

 2009/11/13 14:03









 Re:

Quote:
Disagree. Works are a display saving faith to be genuine, and in that sense are we "justified by our works"



See, this is rightly called "mental gymnastics". It denies the clear sense of one Scripture to support a bias in interpretation made of another.

Either we are justified by works or we aren't. (Jas. 2:24)

One reading of Rom. 1 and 2 makes us understand that the works of the law are very much making the context of the passage. On reading of Jas. 1 and 2 makes it obvious that the royal law of liberty and love are the works being spoken of. Do you disagree with this?

Quote:
Works have nothing to do with the basis of our justification.



A man is justified BY WORKS and NOT BY FAITH ALONE.

Yes, there is grace given to do the works IN GOD. But salvation still must be cooperated with and if it is not, death is the result.

Sola Fide in the Lutheran/Calvinistic sense IS heresy...and grave heresy at that.

How many are in hell today because of it? Only eternity will tell us.

 2009/11/13 14:09
TaylorOtwell
Member



Joined: 2006/6/19
Posts: 927
Arkansas

 Re:

Haydock,

[b]Council of Orange[/b]

CANON 1. If anyone denies that it is the whole man, that is, both body and soul, that was "changed for the worse" through the offense of Adam's sin, but believes that the freedom of the soul remains unimpaired and that only the body is subject to corruption, he is deceived by the error of Pelagius and contradicts the scripture which says, "The soul that sins shall die" (Ezek. 18:20); and, "Do you not know that if you yield yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are the slaves of the one whom you obey?" (Rom. 6:16); and, "For whatever overcomes a man, to that he is enslaved" (2 Pet. 2:19).

CANON 8. If anyone maintains that some are able to come to the grace of baptism by mercy but others through free will, which has manifestly been corrupted in all those who have been born after the transgression of the first man, it is proof that he has no place in the true faith. For he denies that the free will of all men has been weakened through the sin of the first man, or at least holds that it has been affected in such a way that they have still the ability to seek the mystery of eternal salvation by themselves without the revelation of God. The Lord himself shows how contradictory this is by declaring that no one is able to come to him "unless the Father who sent me draws him" (John 6:44), as he also says to Peter, "Blessed are you, Simon Bar-Jona! For flesh and blood has not revealed this to you, but my Father who is in heaven" (Matt. 16:17), and as the Apostle says, "No one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Holy Spirit" (1 Cor. 12:3).

CANON 13. Concerning the restoration of free will. [b]The freedom of will that was destroyed[/b] in the first man can be restored only by the grace of baptism, for what is lost can be returned only by the one who was able to give it. Hence the Truth itself declares: "So if the Son makes you free, you will be free indeed" (John 8:36).

[b]Council of Trent[/b]

CANON 5. [b]If anyone says that after the sin of Adam man's free will was lost and destroyed[/b], or that it is a thing only in name, indeed a name without a reality, a fiction introduced into the Church by Satan, let him be anathema.

---------------------

Do you see these statements as being in agreement?


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Taylor Otwell

 2009/11/13 14:12Profile
TaylorOtwell
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Joined: 2006/6/19
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 Re:

Haydock,

Please visit this article: http://www.apuritansmind.com/Justification/PembleWilliamReconcilingPaulAndJames.htm


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Taylor Otwell

 2009/11/13 14:14Profile
IWantAnguish
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Joined: 2006/6/15
Posts: 343


 Re:

“Satan, the God of all dissension, stirreth up daily new sects, and last of all, which of all other I should never have foreseen or once suspected, he has raised up a sect such as teach...that men
should not be terrified by the Law, but gently exhorted by the preaching of the grace of Christ.”

Martin Luther

Martin Luther hardly championed a position of faith without works. But insisted that genuine faith would no doubt yield a fruitful life of good works demonstrating the faith of the individual.


_________________
Sba

 2009/11/13 14:16Profile









 Re:

TaylorOtwell,

This is a classic example of opponents of the Church not understanding what the Church claims to believe. The council of Orange was a local council and as such is not protected by infalliblity like Trent.

Local councils get things wrong all the time. The Council of Orange was not an ecumenical council, and hence does not have the same protection from error as a council like Trent does.

That being said, much is lost in translation, and comparing the Latin might make things more apparent. It is also not clear from the quote if complete free of the will is intended, or if Orange might simply be referring to the inclination to sin or some other such thing. Given the influence of St. Augustine's writings in the area, it would be hard to imagine the Council of Orange so explicitly disagreeing with him on such a major issue especially since the role of grace, merit, and free will was Augustine's pre-eminent topic (hence he is known as the Doctor of Grace). I suppose anything is possible though.

 2009/11/13 16:02
TaylorOtwell
Member



Joined: 2006/6/19
Posts: 927
Arkansas

 Re:

Quote:

haydock wrote:
Quote:
Disagree. Works are a display saving faith to be genuine, and in that sense are we "justified by our works"



See, this is rightly called "mental gymnastics". It denies the clear sense of one Scripture to support a bias in interpretation made of another.

Either we are justified by works or we aren't. (Jas. 2:24)

One reading of Rom. 1 and 2 makes us understand that the works of the law are very much making the context of the passage. On reading of Jas. 1 and 2 makes it obvious that the royal law of liberty and love are the works being spoken of. Do you disagree with this?

Quote:
Works have nothing to do with the basis of our justification.



A man is justified BY WORKS and NOT BY FAITH ALONE.

Yes, there is grace given to do the works IN GOD. But salvation still must be cooperated with and if it is not, death is the result.

Sola Fide in the Lutheran/Calvinistic sense IS heresy...and grave heresy at that.

How many are in hell today because of it? Only eternity will tell us.



[i]"When, therefore, the Sophists set up James against Paul, they go astray through the ambiguous meaning of a term. When Paul says that we are justified by faith, he means no other thing than that by faith we are counted righteous before God. But James has quite another thing in view, even to shew that he who professes that he has faith, must prove the reality of his faith by his works…we must take notice of the two-fold meaning of the word justified. Paul means by it the gratuitous imputation of righteousness before the tribunal of god; and James, the manifestation of righteousness by the conduct, and that before men, as we may gather from the preceding works, “Shew to me they faith,” etc. In this sense we fully allow that man is justified by works, as when anyone says that a man is enriched by the purchase of a large and valuable estate, because his riches, before hid, shut up in a chest, were thus made known..." -- Calvin[/i]

So that is Calvin’s view. Let’s look a bit closer at the exegesis of the passage. Here are some reasons why Calvin is right and all the naysayers are wrong. 1. The word itself can mean either to declare righteous (this is the normal meaning in Paul), or to show someone to be righteous (as it says “Wisdom is justified by her children”). The second sense is not always in our minds, but wisdom hardly needs the imputed righteousness of Christ. Rather, wisdom is shown to be right by the results in her children. We must not automatically assume one meaning or the other in James. Rather, we must look for contextual clues, and also the analogy of faith. 2. Prima facie evidence is given in verse 18 (as Calvin notes) that the second meaning of “justify” is the meaning that James uses here. In verse 18, it is clear that the point is whether a particular faith is true or not, and how a person might be able to show the true state of his faith. James answers that a true faith is shown by its works. 3. Further evidence is given for this view in verse 21. This is a simple matter of timing. Genesis 22 (Abraham’s near-sacrifice of Isaac) comes after Genesis 15:6. Abraham was justified first by faith in Genesis 15:6, and then his faith showed itself to be genuine in Genesis 22. We will come back to the quotation of Genesis 15:6 in James 2:23 in a moment.

Now, we must deal with the objections to this position. They are stated fairly clearly in Norman Shepherd’s new book The Way of Righteousness: Justification Beginning With James. The first line of reasoning goes like this: “justify” in verse 24 is parallel to “save” in verse 14. The word “save” in verse 14 means “salvation from condemnation when we stand before the Lord God to be judged” (p. 21). Therefore, the justification of verse 24 answers the question of salvation in verse 14 (ibid). The answer to this is that it is not so clear what “save” means in verse 14. Salvation in the Bible is used in more than one way. Salvation can be used of the initial time-point of faith, but it can also be used of the entire Christian life, which would include everything from election to glorification. It is evident that the question at the end of verse 14 expects a negative answer: “Surely it is impossible, isn’t it, that such a works-devoid faith could save him?” In effect, this asks the question: can there be a kind of faith that believes but does not do? And can such a faith be the kind of faith that salvation as a whole is talking about? The scope of the passage cannot be limited to the initial time-point of faith, because James himself says that his faith (implied as already existing) is going to be shown by his works (verse 18). This is parallel to the question of Abraham, whose already existing faith was shown to be genuine by his offering up of Isaac.

The second objection raised to our position is this: 2. James does not talk about faith being justified, but persons being justified (p. 24). It is important to note that Shepherd does not deny that verse 18 has to do with faith being shown to be genuine. Rather, his point is that justification language is not present in verse 18. To this I answer this way: the two meanings correspond to two aspects of a person’s justification. A person is justified forensically (in the Pauline sense of judicial declaration), but then a person is also justified evidentially when his faith is shown to be genuine. Manton put it well when he said that the Jamesian sense of evidentiary justification shows a person to be unhypocritical. You can say a person is unhypocritical or that his faith is unhypocritical, it all comes to the same thing. In other words, Shepherd is mincing words here.

The third objection to our position is stated this way: the word “justify” cannot ever be said to mean “show to be justified” even if it can mean “show to be righteous” (p. 24). However, this objection is closely tied to the previous objection: if a person can be shown to be genuine and unhypocritical, then his justification is also shown to be genuine. The latter idea may be an implication of the former, but a firm implication it is. As a man thinks, so he is. We cannot drive such a large wedge between a person and his faith.

Thirdly, he objects that arguing for the demonstrative sense in James as a way of reconciling James and Paul “is a theological argument rather than an exegetical argument” (p. 24). I must ask why this would be a problem. Are we not required to compare Scripture with Scripture? Is exegesis limited to the immediate context, or does it ultimately extend to the entire Bible? I would strongly argue for the latter. Therefore we MUST seek to reconcile James and Paul.

His fourth main argument is that the broader context of James favors the view that James has in mind the final judgment and a soteric justification on that day (p. 25). But there are two things at work here. First of all, there is a strong strand of Reformed teaching that argues that the final fulfillment of evidentiary proof of justification will happen on the Final Day: believers will be shown before the whole world to have had genuine justifying faith. And the works of believers will be trotted out as the evidence for this claim. This is not soteric. Chapter 5:9 does not prove his point. His point is that we need to be bearing fruit in keeping with a genuine faith. Grumbling is not in keeping with said faith. Therefore, if we are grumbling, we need to be awakened to the fact that we might not have a genuine faith. Besides, the word is not “condemned” in that verse, but “judged.” All our works will in fact be judged, but they might be burned up, as it says in 1 Corinthians 3, if they be hay, straw, or stubble. The fact that it says “you be judged” does not affect this exegesis in the slightest, since it is a metonymy, with the person standing in for the works. He has not proven his point, therefore. I conclude that since all the arguments against the position have an answer, that therefore we should follow Calvin, and argue that “justify” has a demonstrative sense in James, and not a declaritive.

Source: http://greenbaggins.wordpress.com/2009/06/16/justification-in-james/


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Taylor Otwell

 2009/11/13 16:26Profile
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 Re:

Quote:

Your welcome. I posted it on purpose without telling you the church council this came from: The Council of Trent.



Actually, I suspected it was probably the council of Trent. I've been a student of church history. I never read the council of Trent's primary documents firsthand, just summaries of it's content. When one read's it's statements, it's as declared in these canons, it's pretty obvious who they are countering.

Quote:

I don't think you or some other protestants here would agree with Luther's view of Sola Fide either.



I'm not personally a big fan of Martin Luther. He was a smart guy, and I greatly appreciate his contributions to theology, and sharing with all the world the things God did indeed showed him. He can be admired for many things, and even though I disagree with him on many things, I do pause, weigh, and consider anything he said on almost any subject when I run across a quote by him. But to be frank, he was wrong about many things.

Granted, he lived in a very dark period of time, and many of his errors can be traced to the darkness which the devil pulled over the eyes of many through Rome. But, I appreciate his contribution, work, and labor just the same. I'd rather personally identify myself with the Anabaptist than with Luther though. Of course, I don't buy into everything they said either. But, they were willing to take many things a step further than Luther was willing to.


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Jimmy H

 2009/11/13 22:55Profile
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 Re:


Quote:
I agree with the the idea of free will. But I also believe in the Wesleyan notion of prevenient grace that condtions us so as to be able to respond to the Lord when the seed of the supernatural faith that comes through the proclaimed word of God, so as to bring about saving grace for when we do respond to the good news of Jesus Christ.



Here is another example of God's call, His prevenient grace found in Scripture....................................................................


Mat 18:10 "Take heed that you do not despise one of these little ones, for I say to you that in heaven their angels always see the face of My Father who is in heaven.

.............................................................................................

God assigns angels to watch over the children.....

Many are called but few are chosen...

In Christ
Jeff


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Jeff Marshalek

 2009/11/15 21:32Profile
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Joined: 2009/4/5
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 Re: Christ's Imputed Righteousness

Quote:
Does this refer to the perfect life He lived on this earth as a man? Which include all the miracles, love towards unbelievers, love towards disciples, sorrow for the unrepentant, etc. etc. Or does it refer to His essential qualities and complete divine character and holy righteousness as the eternal God who existed outside of time? Or are both of these mingled through the incarnation of the Son of God?



2Co 5:21 For he hath made him to be sin for us, who knew no sin; that we might be made the righteousness of God in him.

Rom 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law is the knowledge of sin.
Rom 3:21 But now the righteousness of God without the law is manifested, being witnessed by the law and the prophets;
Rom 3:22 Even the righteousness of God which is by faith of Jesus Christ unto all and upon all them that believe: for there is no difference:

I am not sure the answer to your question is a) or b). Imputed righteousness is ascribed to or credited to us vicariously through the atoning work of Jesus Christ. It is our position or condition in God's sight because of what Christ has done. ie., I have no righteousness of my own. I have only the righteousness that has been imputed to me. Justification is a term used to describe our standing before God due to what Christ has done. We are justified as we stand before God just as an innocent man would be justified as he stood before a judge at a trial.

Righteousness and justification are not terms used to describe our putting on of the actions, attributes, or character traits of Christ. Some have mistakenly assumed that if they can somehow act more like Christ (much like your choice A) or if I can somehow come to be more like Christ (much like your choice B), then I can somehow become righteous and be accepted in God's sight. this is the exact opposite of imputed righteousness which places us in right standing in God's sight based entirely on our having received the atoning work of salvation in our spirits through faith in Christ alone, and not through any works of our own.


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Travis

 2009/11/15 21:59Profile





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